


Words for You and Me

by Unadulterated



Category: Agent Carter (TV)
Genre: Crossword Puzzles, F/F, Femslash February
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-06
Updated: 2015-02-06
Packaged: 2018-03-10 16:43:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 906
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3297359
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Unadulterated/pseuds/Unadulterated
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For a prompt for Femslash February.</p>
<p>"Hi! Prompt: Cartinelli, doing crossword puzzles."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Words for You and Me

The door opens so hard that it bangs against the wall. The sound is followed quickly by the emphatic murmur of “Oh, _shoot_ ,” and a far gentler closing of the door.

“English!”

Peggy leans over to look at the entryway, just enough to see Angie, hair beginning the gradual escape from its neat arrangement, striding in and kicking the door closed behind her. She’s already ranting.

“As if it weren’t bad enough they made me work a _Sunday morning_ , what are these people, _heathens_? The clientele was especially horrible, too. I suppose all the _good_ churchgoers were at their meetings.” Angie harrumphs and sits heavily on the bed, hard enough to make the mediocre mattress bounce once, twice, and just slightly a third. Peggy waits patiently, holding her pen high enough that the bouncing won’t make her mark the paper accidentally.

Angie groans theatrically and sprawls on her back. “The horror, the horror!”

“You should go to work just before your next audition. I’m sure you’d feel _dramatic_ enough then,” Peggy says, smiling slightly. No doubt it comes through in her voice, because Angie lifts herself up on her elbows and gives Peggy and annoyed look thoroughly ruined by the persistent grin tugging at her mouth.

“Alright then, English, how’s your day then?”

“Seven-letter word for pulpit.”

Angie’s face goes blank for a moment before she notices the paper in Peggy’s hands. “Have you really been doing the crossword all day?”

“Yes,” Peggy says, unrepentant. She has a day off for the first time in what feels like weeks, and she’s going to spend it however she wants. Sleeping in was lovely; she’s only been up for two hours. “I was thinking altar, but that doesn’t fit.”

“Lectern,” Angie supplies.

Peggy counts the letters down and nods primly, writing in the letters. “Thank _you_ ,” she says as she writes the _n_ with a flourish.

“In pen?” Angie notes, sitting up again. “You must have a lot of faith in me, English.”

“Yes, that fits another clue, thank you,” Peggy says, filling in the word. Seven letters again, _an Indo-European language belonging to the West Germanic branch_ , and the first square matched up with the _e_ in lectern.

Angie snorts. “It’s made for you. Next clue,” she encourages, scooting closer so she can properly peek over at the paper.

She’s getting into it, which is nice. Peggy likes people, she does, but sometimes they’re awfully hard to _talk_ to. Angie in particular, for reasons… that Peggy tends not to think about.

Partially in respect for the late Captain.

Partially for causes of simple common sense.

Peggy clears her throat and hopes that her face doesn’t show any hint of her thoughts. “Ten-letter word for telephone?” She was actually stumped on that one. Three blank spaces, two _t_ ’s, three more blank spaces, an _o_ , last blank space.

Angie hummed and leaned over to look at the letters already filled in. “That’s, what, 15 across?” Peggy nods, and Angie chews her lip. “Oh! It’s chatterbox.”

Peggy turns to give her an odd look. “That’s a machine gun.”

Angie blinks. “Um. A chatterbox?”

“Yes. Isn’t it?” Peggy frowns at the page, thinks back. “Oh. I suppose it means telephone, too…” They’d appropriated the term during the war, but she remembers before that—it seems so long ago—and yes. The noisy box someone always cries on in the hallway.

_Before_ Dum-Dum went off cackling with his machine gun, his “chatterbox” baby, he’d called it once. The name had stuck.

“Machine gun, huh?” Angie muses. “Never heard it used like that.”

Peggy has to think of something fast. “Well, my beau was in the war. The European Theater. He would write back about the latest battle, the chatterboxes just about bursting his eardrums—“ Peggy needs to stop talking before she sounds longing. It was a lie, but it was a lie that made her think about Steve, who _would_ complain about the chatterboxes, just to her, because the serum had improved his hearing, and instead of being half deaf he’d be wincing at sounds louder than he’d previously believed possible. “He died in the war,” Peggy finishes quickly, and scans for the next clue.

She tries not to notice Angie looking at her, curious, sympathetic, all those human things that Peggy has to hold in if she’s going to be able to fight. It—it’s strange. To be the target of those emotions, that care, when Peggy would rather distance herself from what she doesn’t let herself show anymore.

But she doesn’t dislike it.

Still, she has to resist clearing her throat, goes to another clue. “Five letters, woman at a bar—“

“Dyke,” Angie says promptly.

Peggy pauses, blinks at her crossword. She’s positive that her cheeks are now bright red, so she tries not to give Angie the incredulous look that she wants to.

The silence is palpable. “I said that too quickly, didn’t I,” Angie says sheepishly.

Somehow, that makes Peggy breathe easier. “If you did, I wouldn’t tell. Five letters,” she repeats. “That’s only four.”

Angie hesitates, then forges right on ahead. “Well, everyone knows you need _two_ dykes for a proper girl’s bar.”

Peggy snorts; can’t help herself. “Well, the last letter is an _r_ , so somehow I doubt it.” But she braves her own blush and looks over at Angie, smiles, and maybe Angie’s smile is bright enough to give Peggy some hope again, too.


End file.
